Joe Garland:

Well since they’ve already done the guy-running-in-Philly movie (5 times!) and since one can never have enough cute movies set on the west side of Manhattan, as Oprah would say, “You’re going to New York! You’re going to New York!!” He, and we’ll call him “Eddie,” lives in a rundown brownstone between Columbus and Amsterdam in the 80s (yeah, around where Meg Ryan lived in “You’ve Got Mail” but much smaller, more like Dustin Hoffman’s place in “Marathon Man,” dark and messy. She, call her “Flo,” lives in the Dakota, with a kind of “Rosemary’s Baby” lighting (and I could go either way on the Lennon shrine. No, wait, she hates the Beatles and has a framed poster of Mick, no, this being teh Dakota, a Mick by Warhol thing and, back to “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Sympathy for the Devil” (a great treadmill song by the way) playing softly (as if) in the background).

So they pass each other on the Park Drive. But twice every lap. And each calculates that they were going about the same pace (this is something one does when on the Park Drive, if you pass someone and then again 3 miles later and she looks like she’s doing the full loop you know you’re doing the same pace). He, of course, is the type, were they in Philly, who’d wear a Philadelphia Distance Run shirt. She’d wear the Rock ‘n’ Roll one. Yin and Yang. Blah, blah, blah.

They finally chat. Trouble. She does Daniels. He does Pfitz/Douglas. She does 10Ks. He does marathons. Then he becomes obsessed with her sultry voice, she by his complete lack of body fat. They do long runs together. Up the Hudson to the George. They are both in the Blue Corral in NYRR races. And then she decides that to show him her love, she’ll do the ING NYC Marathon! But she doesn’t tell him. He’s suspicious when she cut down on her interval workouts and doing 18, 19, 20 milers. She says, “Building a solid base is important for the 10K.” She says, “Lydiard,” and he’s satisfied. When they run into each other at the Marathon Expo, she, having put her race bag in a New Balance bag, says she’s only looking at the shoes.

And then. He she’s her one line over for the port-a-sans at Fort Wadsworth. “OMG, it’s really you.” They’re both in the local-competitives and so start together. They’re aiming for sub-3, and he tells her to stick with him.

The twist: He blows up on First Avenue. She’s fresh. She’s relaxed. She tells him she’ll bring him home. (Literally it’ll turn out, ha ha.) And she does. They see the clock with a mile to go. It says 2:53:25. He tells her to go for it. She refuses. “I’ll get you up Central Park South,” she assures him. “No, No, go. I’ll get in.” She stays. Approaching the finish, the clock says 2:59:55. They sprint, but it’s too far. “3:00:05.” She’s crestfallen. But she’s sacrificed for the man of her dreams. He smiles. “Honey.” Yes he called her that. “That’s the clock time. We’re definitely under on chip.” They hug. They kiss. Camera scans away from the two figures, in their metallic capes, hugging as masses of similarly-clad runners pass by them.

Of course, in the end it doesn’t work. That only happens in movies.